The Sea is Full of Stars

better, younger, more alive than I have since I was clawing my way up.”

“You—You have another of those things?”

Wallinchky grinned. “I have the original. Hell, if Josich got the duplicate we had built from specs to work, then the original should do the job even easier!”

“How do you know they aren’t vaporized? Or integrated into that—that thing in the same way these two are integrated with your computer here? Or are now dead, out of power and water and food on some godforsaken ancient ruin? All those are as probable as this, particularly my first idea.”

“My gut says they’re not,” Wallinchky replied. “And I don’t think our guests from the Realm think so, either, or they wouldn’t have bothered to come down here in person. O’Leary’s smart. He’s already got the analysis of the machine they recovered from Josich’s operation, probably in pieces, and discovered it isn’t the same materials. That’s what they’re after, nephew. They blew the other one up. Now they want their original gadget back.”

“Then all this is from an analysis of you? They already figured out that you’d haul it out and try and use it?”

“Why do you think they showed us that recording? Of course they know. And they also know that, like some of the most precious loot in the collection, they couldn’t get it by force.”

“Even if you use it, though, you’d have to go to the city. That would put you out in the open in an e-suit and easy to pick off,” Ari noted.

“Not me, nephew. Us. All four of us. Then they’ll be stuck with a few people here who haven’t any power over the computer or takeoffs, landings, defense, you name it, and they’d be dealing strictly with the true master of this place. It probably will cause them a monstrous problem. And, if that other one is Kincaid, I suspect we’ll have company. Remember, he wants to go where Josich went, no matter where it is. And O’Leary wants his gizmo back intact. They’re not going to hit us, nephew. They don’t give a damn if I get the thing working or not. If I go, they’re free of having to deal with me, my organization, my resources, all of it. If I don’t, well, I’m going to have to do the other thing.”

“The other thing?”

“Download myself into the computer core here and probably merge with it. There’s no other way. Either way it goes, this could be very, very interesting.”

Ari was frightened. “I’m not going to do it, Uncle! I’m not ready for that!”

“Son, you got no choice at all,” Jules Wallinchky told him. “You can do it as a volunteer, you can do it like those two girls, or you can die. You got no future anyway. You know too much, and no matter what I do to your head, the Realm’s got stuff that can recover some of it. No, nephew. You come with me or the girls take you down to the med-lab.” He sighed. “But not right now. I’m starved and I could really use a good dinner, the best wine, all the best stuff. We’ll get the computer working on the problem now. Will you join me?”

Ari Martinez sighed, but nodded slowly. He was wondering what the odds were of knocking off his dear old mother’s brother and getting away with it.

The City of the Ancient Ones, Grabant 4

The great machine of the Ancient Ones knew that something was up. It was clear to both Core and the two women that there was a lot more activity below them and on the surface, much of it concentrating on the ancient city. They could feel the lines of force, feel the energy in intelligently directed patterns flowing on or near the surface. As before, it was not something they could understand or connect with, but the fact that what had been a rare occurrence was now almost common spoke volumes.

It knew!

Core knew it needed to pursue its own agenda, yet it could not violate its own central programming, which placed Jules Wallinchky’s interests paramount. It couldn’t quarrel with its master’s series of probable outcomes, but it did have a different set of hopes. If what had happened to Josich Hadun happened here, Core would much prefer that it conclude as a merger with the Ancient Ones’ great machine. Still, it had to prepare for any eventuality, and that meant, if need be, preparing the two women for the eventuality of severing contact with Core. Wallinchky wanted them programmed so they would protect him and obey his commands no matter what happened to any of them. Core wanted an imperative to contact it if at all possible.

The best that could be done would be to implant in them a drive to interface with whatever was out there. Core also wanted more of the human touch, or at least experience from that prior existence, so they would be self- sufficient if need be. It would be tricky, but it was possible.

Even a supreme computer couldn’t think of everything, but it would try.

The Kharkovs had been unwilling to come, and in fact stated that they would be delighted to become curators of the collection and at least ensure that it was not harmed by whoever got it, which was not what Wallinchky wanted, but was enough to satisfy his primary concerns. He knew that the Kharkovs would be only superficially analyzed by the Realm, and the cover story that they’d been engaged for restoration work, and only after being stuck here, with only one of them allowed to go offworld at a time after that, would be enough to absolve them of culpability.

“All right, so where is this gadget?” Ari asked over the suit intercom. The environment suit had come a long way from primitive spacesuits of the past; it was lightweight, fitted itself to the wearer, and had a small matter/energy/ matter converter that could supply basic sustenance and air and power to the suit almost indefinitely. There was no way around the need to be completely covered, of course, and while the helmet bubble was small and unobtrusive, it was certainly there, magnifying sounds and also making everything seem somewhat unnatural.

Ari hated the suits. If you got an itch, it was almost impossible to satisfactorily scratch it without risking breaking the seals.

“The girls are bringing the gadget, as you call it,” Wallinchky responded. “See? There!”

Ari turned and saw two figures emerge from the surface level airlock carrying what looked to be an enormous circular box. It might have been the largest trampoline in the Realm, but he knew it wasn’t. The two small, frail- looking women were handling the thing as if it weighed next to nothing; in fact, even outside the artificial standard gravity of the compound, they and everything else still weighed about seventy-five percent of normal, so if that thing was as heavy in normal gravity as it looked, well, they might well be hefting something close to half a ton.

“Is it that light, or are they really that strong?” he asked his uncle.

“A bit of both, actually. It is lighter than it looks, but I wouldn’t want to be one of those carrying it.”

Ari looked around. “I feel so damned exposed out here. What if Genghis Whatever and his buddy decide to just come on out and pop us cold?”

“They may come out—indeed, I suspect at least one of them will—but they won’t ‘pop us cold,’ as you so colorfully put it. They don’t want to damage this thing, and, besides, they’re within easy range of the main computer’s defensive ring. We’ll know when, and if, they emerge. Ah! Here we all are together! Come, nephew! It’s a good walk yet to the ruins!” Jules Wallinchky gazed at the barren, dark landscape, the twisted spires, the yellow, brown, crimson, and orange rock formations, and the almost black sky with its many stars. “Beautiful day for a walk, if I do say so myself!”

The landscape was indeed bleak, but they walked along what seemed almost a road. It wasn’t much of one, but it was wide and unnaturally smooth, and sunk into the bedrock about fifteen centimeters at the start and went deeper as they approached the city on the horizon.

“What did you build this thing for?” An asked his uncle.

“I didn’t build it, nephew. It’s part and parcel of that city up there. It’s one of many. There’s a lot that’s fascinating about this place. Now and then you’ll see the remnants of a crater, before we sink too deep to see a lot of the surface detail. The craters are all younger than the road, but the road has no crater marks. Almost like… well, like it’s maintained for use.”

“Creepy,” Ari commented.